


Buffy, Femininity, and Pathos

by LittleRaven



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Gen, Meta, Meta Essay, Nonfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23422720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/pseuds/LittleRaven
Summary: Brief thoughts on the use of femininity for pathos.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7
Collections: March Meta Matters Challenge





	Buffy, Femininity, and Pathos

**Author's Note:**

> This was posted on my Tumblr in the year 2018. The title was added in order to post it here.

Buffy dying in white twice + Buffy dying in Dawn’s place + the parallel in “Inca Mummy Girl” + the way the Council treats Slayers + “every generation,” “one girl in all the world” + how the first Slayer Sineya was made = Slayers are virgin sacrifices to keep the dark away.

Buffy’s meant to be the girly girl who fights back instead of dying in a horror movie, but that girlyness is also linked her innocence and humanity, the site of much of the pathos in the show. She was a mean girl once, but it shows only through allusions and her social confidence as compared to Willow or Xander. She’s got some of the pure virginal Final Girl in her, with the virginity optional. Buffy is “just a girl,” the archetypical perfect (white) American girl, and the sacrifice of her girlhood is inextricably linked with the sacrifice of her humanity, and of her life.


End file.
